European Cricket League


The European Cricket League, also dubbed "the Champions League of European Cricket" is a cricket tournament with a goal to develop and popularize cricket in the European continent. It is played in the T-10 format among clubs all around Europe that are champions in domestic tournaments in their respective countries. The inaugural tournament in 2019 took place in La Manga Club, Spain with 8 clubs participating. VOC Rotterdam were crowned the champions who defeated SG Findorff by 101 runs in the final. It was viewed on live TV & streamed around the world in over 120 countries in more than 140 million households by over 40 broadcasters. The 2020 edition takes place from 31 May to 7 June 2020 and features 16 champion teams from 15 countries.

Founder

The league was founded in 2018 by Daniel Weston with eight official International Cricket Council member federations on board, namely Russia, Netherlands, France, Italy, Denmark, Romania, Spain and Germany for the first tournament in 2019. Event organisers have since increased the number of federations and eligible teams for future tournaments.

ECL Board

Fellow ECL board members Frank Leenders and Thomas Klooz were both part of the marketing team of the UEFA Champions League. Leenders and Klooz both joined TEAM Marketing in 1992 and played significant roles in the rebranding of the UEFA Champions League during its formative years. Leenders went on to become Managing Director and a member of the Board of Directors, while Klooz rose to become CEO of TEAM and was also on the Board of Directors.
ECL CEO Roger Feiner is a former Director of Broadcasting at FIFA from 1999-2002, responsible for the global TV rights and TV broadcasting of the FIFA Confederation Cup in Mexico in 1999 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan/Korea amongst others.
The European Cricket League has no connection with the Euro T20 Slam, a proposed tournament in Europe which was postponed a few weeks after the inaugural staging of the European Cricket League.

Seasons and winners